Reply to post: Screwdriver

Cool IT support drones never look at explosions: Time to resolution for misbehaving mouse? Three seconds

El Duderino
Stop

Screwdriver

Late 80s or early 90s (too many brain cells have meanwhile been obliterated to recall the exact timeframe) I worked for a software house that had its first RISC mini delivered, an HP3000/925 which I was eager to get my mitts on. The kit had been delivered, the customer engineer arrived and off we went to the data centre (read: basement of the house where the company was situated).

I dutyfully and impatiently assisted him getting my new toy racked, experiencing those Christmassy emotions I vaguely (same brain cell thing) recalled from my childhood, after which the moment suprème arrived and we powered the mighty machine up. The system console (an HP2392 or 'Calypso' terminal) was sitting on a desk next to the rack which was about 2m high. The Calypso stayed quiet and just offered a green glare. We booted and rebooted (or at least attempted to), checked cable connections over and over again, unracked and reracked, and all seemed fine, except we didn't see anything happening on said console.

That is, until I eagle-eyed - after 2 or 3 hours of unsuccessful troubleshooting and both of us contemplating to declare it a DOA, despite all diagnostics giving it a clean bill of health - noticed that a screwdriver (not of the liquid variety) that early in the process had fallen off the top of the rack, had hit the 'Stop' key on the keyboard, which sent a Control-S or X/OFF. The Calypso actually displayed 'STOP' below its function key blocks at the bottom but we had been concentrating on the void in the rest of the display.

We both still bring that up today. Good times.

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